Monday, April 22, 2013

Extra Pale Ale, huh? So it's more than a Pale Ale, but not quite an IPA? Beer name variations are always a good reason for a Bottle Battle. Beers were tasted blind as usual.

Beer #1 was hazy golden with a huge white head. It had some fruity hops in the nose and some grassy, tart aromas as well. The body was rich and almost creamy while the flavor was dominated by tart and yeasty notes. The finish was also quite yeasty with not much bitterness.

Beer #2 was clear golden yellow and featured aromas of grass, grain and citrus. The flavor was crisp and clean with a mild citrus/pineapple hop presence. It finished with more grassy flavors and mild grapefruity bitterness.

#1 was the Uinta Wylde. We suspect something was wrong with it. The yeasty character was bizarre. I even went so far as to guess that the name might have something to do with it being fermented with some wild (wylde) yeasts. I was wrong. It's part of their certified organic line of beers and according to their website it is supposed to be a pretty straight forward hoppy pale. So, it's quite possible we got a bottle that was stored improperly or something. Either way, it was the obvious loser.

The Alesmith beer on the other hand was a very nice, hoppy, sessionable pale ale. We highly recommend you pop a bottle when the weather warms up.

In regards to the Extra Pale Ale moniker, both these beers seemed to actually be lighter in body and lower in alcohol than many standard pales ales we've tried. So in the grand hierarchy of hoppy beers these would fall somewhere below a standard pale ale putting them in the same general area as India Session Ales. Perhaps the "Extra" stands for extra sessionable? More marketing nonsense.